


Eclipse - A Tangled Adventure: The Story of Eugene and the Moonstone

by Windryder1



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Cassandra - Freeform, F/M, Tangled the series - Freeform, eugene fizherbert - Freeform, moonstone Eugene, pascal - Freeform, rapunzel - Freeform, tangled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24117895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windryder1/pseuds/Windryder1
Summary: If Eugene grabbed the moonstone instead of Cassandra. His thoughts and his reactions, and the thoughts and reactions of the moonstone itself.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 11
Kudos: 38





	Eclipse - A Tangled Adventure: The Story of Eugene and the Moonstone

He took it from her. 

The moonstone.

Her destiny.

No.

His destiny.

It belonged to him. 

His right to wield the accursed power his family lived and died to guard from the world for generations - even in the afterlife. That power stole the kingdom, stole his mother, stole his identity, and stole his father’s sanity. 

His life was saved for this purpose: to create a new identity not as the moonstone’s guard...

But as its soul protector. 

His destiny.

The moonstone knew from the moment this being took his first breath in this world that he was the true compliment to the sun drop. He was the one it had waited for for generations. It rejected all other attempts to control it, bond with it, own it, even touch it. 

At first, these callous, brazen people were a nuisance. But as the years wore on, and the fool-hearty continued to try to assert their dominance, the moonstone’s rejections grew more and more drastic until finally when King Edmund’s fingers brushed its brilliant surface...

...It snapped. It had had enough. 

In a vibrant, burst of energy, it destroyed the kingdom with knives of unbreakable black rocks that split the ground, killed people and livestock, tore through homes, shred the very stone of the castle around it, and took the very thing the king cherished most: his wife. 

A sliver of that power latched to another called Quirin, but that was of no consequence at that moment in time. It would find that shard again in whatever form it took. The moonstone is always drawn to its own.

In building its cage, it swept over the child in the queen’s arms... and resonated. 

There it was; the innocent, vulnerable infant destined to be its host. It would bond with this human, and be free to search the lands for the sun drop. 

And so, it let the child live, but not before making sure all heard and clearly understood its message. 

One being, and one being alone would reunite it with its twin.

But then to its ire, King Edmund sent the child away.

And so it waited. 

It waited for twenty-six years. 

Now that time had finally come. 

The moonstone sensed its host. Instead of lashing out, it acquiesced. It recognized him, and greedily secured its bond to the human before he could question his decision. 

Eugene’s muscles spasmed at the cold heat burning his skin. He opened his palm automatically to drop the stone, but his glove had burned away.

The stone was gone. 

A sudden sharp sense akin to diving into a frozen lake shot up his arm. He inhaled, too shocked to make a sound. He was trapped beneath its ice.

He felt the power buzz up his arm no longer as a solid stone, but as a liquid, then pure energy, then a force. 

Rapunzel’s terror-filled voice calling his name muddied within the ringing in his ears. 

It burned its way swiftly over his heart where it lingered. Then, in a beat, it merged with its host. 

Eugene cried out at the severe shift caused by the transformation. His vision blurred as the stone’s power lifted him off the ground. 

A blast of energy exploded shards of black rock and stone that shot out in a halo from the shock wave.

The sun drop sensed it and reacted. Rapunzel quickly created a wall of hair between herself and her friends. Debris harmlessly impacted the surface of her golden locks. 

However, the rock that speared out in other directions embedded itself in the walls.

Cassandra and Rapunzel sheltered behind her hair against a continuous whirlwind that kept them away from Eugene. 

Streaks of blue energy crackled around him.

What had he done? This was a bad idea. He’d had some doozies in the past, but this one took first prize. It was inside every part of him, including his hair, and he couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t get it out. He existed completely at the moonstone’s mercy.

That’s when it hit him. It was never a stone, but an embodiment of the moonstone’s power into a physical form. And now that power had transferred to embody another form:

His.

The power pierced through his skin, blood, bone, and energy with the rush of a wildfire. Every inch of this human became part of it, and it, part of him. 

His eyes widened as it turned the pigment of his brown irises and hair to match itself - a luminescent blue.

It reached his mind and combed through his memories. This human called himself Eugene Fitzherbert. He had an alias: Flynn Rider. It accepted both as its own. 

Its host had lived a life of hardships, and adventures. Had gone to bed hungry many nights, looked danger in the eye, was captured, indentured into servitude, feared he wouldn’t see the next morning, and not too long ago, died. 

It sensed the sun drop’s healing power that revived him still actively at work to keep him alive, accepted it, and let it be. Its host was completely oblivious to its presence. That part of the sun drop was a much a part of Eugene as the moonstone would soon be.

He had also loved, dreamed, created, cared for those more unfortunate than himself, and cherished the rare friendship he had made. He would steal, cause mayhem, and do what he had to survive. He was a rogue, a thief, and a joker, but he would never perform a malicious act simply for the pleasure of watching someone suffer. Jokes were one thing, but he had standards. And as hidden as it could be sometimes, a moral center. 

As the moonstone’s power reached deeper, it touched a mirror of negative emotions of self worth and value. Eugene’s fearlessness and brash confidence were a product of both survival and lack of concern for his own well being. 

He took the risky jobs, jumped headfirst into danger, had a skin and hair care routine, and lived within the persona of Flynn Rider for so long, he couldn’t identify his real self away from the simulacrum anymore. 

Flynn Rider believed Eugene wasn’t worth it.

It would have to change that. 

Eugene’s heart raced from fear, but also from recognizing the moonstone as a familiar presence. He’d felt this power before.

The moonstone sensed the brilliant glow of the sun drop. “ _You’re here_ ,” it made its host smile as though tasting a fine dessert, “ _It’s been so long_.” It raised its host’s hand toward Cassandra and Pascal. These two beings were interfering with the sun drop’s light. 

_Don’t,_ Eugene thought, _Don’t hurt them_. 

_Who_?

He looked down.

Eugene made it see. The intense glow of the sun drop dimmed back to normal as it saw them as he did. It saw Rapunzel, Pascal, and Cassandra through Eugene’s eyes. It saw confusion and fear in their faces, but not for themselves. 

For him. 

They loved him. 

And it saw now that they feared for his life. The two beings weren’t interfering with the sun drop’s light, they were reflecting it. The sun drop cared for them.

It felt that love seeded deep within Eugene’s soul. His love for the host of the sun drop was always meant to be - as both ethereal powers were drawn to each other - but so were their hosts. 

However, the moonstone wasn’t prepared for the depth of that love, or the levels of self sacrifice its host - Eugene - would go to to protect her. 

It approved. 

This former ephemeral being was no longer simply a human. 

The moonstone was now Eugene.

And Eugene was now the moonstone.

It lowered him back to the ground and he took a deep breath. 

What seemed like an eternity to him lasted only a few quick moments. 

He felt changed. Aside from his missing glove, his clothing and skin remained unaffected. His hair and eyes, however...

He flexed his right hand and stared at the fully healed entry point in the center of his palm. The stone was gone. No, that wasn’t true. It was here, under every inch of his skin, and very much on alert as it acclimated to its new existence. Oddly, he was in no pain, but he felt complete. In fact he felt like himself, though a version of himself that just shot upright in bed from a vivid, heart-pounding nightmare.

“...Eugene?” 

Her voice pulled him back from the experience. His head turned toward her to his left. 

The rock crumbled from the underside of the thin support beam.

Rapunzel took a cautious step forward, staring into the new blue light of his eyes, as if trying to see the force behind it. The moonstone’s power was there. She could sense its presence. She had to know if the man she loved was still in there, too. “Eugene...please...” 

The bridge cracked. 

“Raps!” Cassandra rushed forward to pull her friend out of danger.

Eugene swept his hand out instinctively, calling the black rocks to his aid. They obeyed his unspoken desire without question and reformed the support to a solid, obsidian bridge. 

Rapunzel froze with her hair in hand, ready to lasso him to safety as she had done many times before. 

Eugene felt the moonstone’s raw chaos calm, settle, and seem to exhale. The ferocity he feared would tear him apart had evaporated. 

The blue in his eyes faded back to brown, as did the shade of his hair until he needed that power again. He slumped slightly. That was a rush he didn’t expect. 

He glanced around at what he had done at a thought, then to them. 

He backed away, afraid - afraid of hurting her, of what he had done, of what had just happened to him... 

He stopped, clenching his fists. No. He couldn’t give in to fear and walk away from her. Not after what he just did. He couldn’t let her touch the stone. He couldn’t take the risk of its volatile reaction killing her and his friends as it did his mother, even if Rapunzel was the sun drop. There was a fifty/fifty shot that he was wrong, but he had the chance to save her, and he took it.

It was the right thing to do. Now he had to come up with a damned good reason for hijacking the goal of their entire trip. The excuse of how his father insisted the black rocks led him here so he could fulfill his destiny seemed suddenly thin.

“Uh...” he fished for the right words. How do you segue out of something as mindblowingly major as this? “I can explain.”

Cassandra’s eyebrows knit in a ‘v’ of irritation. “You had better.”

“Really? After all this, that’s what you came up with?” He eyed her as a brother would to an annoying sister.

Pascal mimicked her look and stuck his tongue out. 

Eugene’s shoulder’s slumped. “Et tu, Frog?”

As far as they were concerned, he had just stolen Rapunzel’s destiny. 

Rapunzel reached out tentatively toward his face.

He jerked away slightly. If she touched him, he might unintentionally hurt her. He didn’t know how the moonstone - er...he (that would take some getting used to) - would react to the sun drop. But the thought of living the rest of his life without ever knowing that touch again was a punishment worse than death. He closed his eyes, but didn’t back away. Whatever happened next, he needed to trust himself and her. 

She hesitated, sensing that trust, and risked it. 

Unlike the sun drop, the moonstone didn't showcase a constant manifestation of its power. However, it reacted to her close proximity by lighting up his irises once more, as if eager to reach her, and reflect the light she gave - a light that tempered it.

Rapunzel gently placed her palm against his face, feeling the stubble of his facial hair. Her hair began to glow. He felt warm, and a new sense resonated beneath his skin. Yet he seemed far more familiar than ever, like she was meeting him again for the first time in years. Eugene was already her heart - her dream, but now she sensed he’d become more than that. 

Her touch felt like coming home. He rested his hand over hers and his voice softened. “I’m ok, Blondie,” he touched his forehead against hers, and for the first time in his life, fully believed his own reassurance.

“I’m ok.”


End file.
